By Mary O’KEEFE

At Tuesday’s Glendale Unified School District board of education meeting, members and staff discussed the process of reopening schools. Before the discussion began, several teachers weighed in with their concerns on how the reopening choices were made. They spoke about an upcoming district presentation, sharing their disappointment in not being included in the decisions on the options that will be offered. They pointed out that the first Return-to-School Committee meeting that included teachers to discuss these programs was last Friday, which they stated did not give teachers enough time to research and prepare input.

District staff members presented the plans they will be looking at as they work toward an August back-to-school program.

“We have to ensure we are flexible to the needs of our parents in terms of scheduling the students in classrooms,” said Hagop Eulmessekian, director of Student Support Services, as he began the presentation.

In addition to working with parents, district administrators’ goals include maintaining a high quality of instruction while maintaining fiscal solvency.

In looking at the options that were presented, Eulmessekian said administrators considered recommendations from the Los Angeles County Office of Education [LCOE], California Dept. of Education and Los Angeles County as well as looking at other countries as they opened their schools. They recognized the need to balance social distancing with maintaining a quality education.

“We walked through campuses to see how to provide social distancing and [looked] at the inventory of PPE [personal protective equipment],” he said.

More PPE has been ordered by the district to make certain supplies are plentiful.

Superintendent Vivian Ekchian added that one of the reasons they have taken time to decide on any plan is to avoid falling into the situation that other districts and educators have – making several plans, only to have decisions change as more information is shared by other organizations. She gave the example of the CSU system initially issuing guidelines that all campuses would hold only  remote classes then deciding that some campuses could hold some in-person classes then revising so decisions on classes would be made by individual campuses.

In addition, there are opportunities being offered that GUSD would like to take advantage of as it plans re-opening.

The district is using Five Phase Planning: Phase 1 is research, which has been completed, and Phase 2 is assess, also completed. It is now into Phase 3 – plan – to expand the task force and make recommendations to the board.

Phase 3 includes district representatives reaching out to teachers, which was done last Friday. On Wednesday, a survey was scheduled to be released to parents that would give them an opportunity to view and share their opinions of the plans put forth by the district.

There were many models of re-opening reviewed and the district came up with three versions it would examine more closely. The first is Traditional Setting, which is back to what classes looked like prior to COVID-19. The second is Hybrid Learning, which will see 50% of students in school at any given time and 50% learning remotely. The third is Distance Learning, an online academy that would go through Verdugo Academy with 100% of students learning remotely. The fourth is Independent Study, similar to Verdugo Academy in which 100% of students learn remotely with on-site check-in.

Distance Learning would be the only option that would not include any on-campus instruction and Traditional Setting would be the only plan that would not include remote learning.

Hybrid Learning would allow 50% capacity of students on campus, all observing social distancing. The schedule for middle and high schools would have some students attending classes at school in the morning while another group attended in the afternoon. Not all classes would be attended each day; for example, students in periods one through three would be on campus on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and students in periods four through six would be on campus on Wednesdays and Fridays with Mondays set aside to provide extra help in specific classes.

This model would not mean that students only attend classes half a day. The students will also have to incorporate remote learning. For example, according to the district presentation, a group of students would attend periods one through three at school in the morning while another group of students attended the same class remotely. Then when that morning group is not attending on-campus classes, it is attending remote classes in the afternoon as its counterparts are on campus.

It did appear that this is the model the district is leaning toward; however, it is still reaching out to parents, teachers and other stakeholders to share thoughts and gather opinions. The district sent out a parent survey via email and will follow up with phone calls to those parents who do not have an email address. There will also be town hall meetings that all stakeholders can attend, including non-parent community members. The district is in the process of creating and sending out a survey for its employees and finding ways to reach out to students.

Students in grades four through 12 received a survey on Wednesday that asked their opinions on how remote learning worked, or did not work, for them.

For those who would like to share their opinion on reopening, an email repository has been set up at returntoschool@gusd.net.

For more information on returning to school, visit www.gusd.net/returntoschool.

  Mary Okeefe